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The Cause Of AIDS: Fact And Speculation

by: Colman Jones

Publication date: 1992

Usage: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International

Topics: AIDS, Syphilis, Colman Jones, John Scythes

Item Size: 732.2M

1995 compilation of the documentary series "The Cause of AIDS: Fact and Speculation", originally produced in 1990 by Toronto journalist Colman Jones for the "Toronto: Living with AIDS Project", a community cable video initiative by John Greyson and Michael Balser. The documentary later evolved into 4 one-hour programs for the MacLean-Hunter cable TV program Undercurrents, produced in 1992 by Hans Burgschmidt and Mark Surman, with generous help from John Scythes, Max Allen, and many others.

Awards: The series won a MacLean-Hunter Lizzie Award in the Current Affairs category, received an Ontario Cable Television Association (OCTA) award, and was later rebroadcast in 1994 on the Rogers TV community cable channels in Toronto and Vancouver.

Website: http://colman.net/aids/video.html

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHp6UB08pXQ

Full transcript: The Cause of Aids: Full Transcript (ZIP)

Books on the Syphilis-AIDS theory: https://archive.org/details/syphilis-aids-hypothesis-books

Description of the four parts:

Part One of the series begins with a brief history of the controversy, introducing the debate over whether HIV has been proven to cause AIDS, with a step-by-step examination of the various pieces of evidence used to support HIV as the cause of AIDS. These include test-tube observations in the laboratory, experiments in animals, and epidemiological data on the distribution patterns of HIV and AIDS. Also reviewed are the actual rates at which different people with HIV get sick, and reports of AIDS cases without HIV, profiled in exclusive footage from the July 1992 International Conference on AIDS in Amsterdam.

Part Two of the series continues with a critical analysis of what being "HIV-positive" actually means, in light of increasing evidence showing that many people have been exposed to HIV (often several times), but without testing positive for HIV antibodies nor developing AIDS. This segment examines other factors - viral and bacterial infections, drugs, malnutrition - that could well account for immune suppression among different groups of people at risk for AIDS, and how these immunosuppressive risks might also explain HIV antibody tests turning positive. The episode concludes by outlining the tragic consequences of focusing all research and treatments on HIV.

Part 3 of this series explores the role of other sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) - syphilis in particular - in the development of AIDS. One of the most highly associated risk factors for becoming HIV-positive, syphilis has long been one of humanity's greatest killers, feared for centuries for its devastating effects, including - according to some - increased susceptibility to other life-threatening conditions, such as pneumonia, cancer and TB. In fact, medical texts of 50 years ago suggest that, far from being a new phenomenon, immune suppression - leading to early death - was rampant earlier this century, in light of what appear to be many thousands of pre-1950 AIDS cases.

Part 4 of this series concludes by looking at how the advent of antibiotics and the emergence of the gay liberation movement in the last few decades has affected the diagnosis of syphilis, particulary the blood tests - now under increasing scrutiny in people with HIV - and examines various treatment options, including both penicillin and immune-based therapies. The series concludes by assessing the response to this debate by the AIDS community, and reflects on the politics of science and sex.